CSB to Investigate Deepwater Horizon Incident

photo :Oilonline.com

I'm very pleased to hear that the US Chemical Safety Board (CSB) has been invited to investigate the causes of the explosion on the Transocean/BP oil rig, which occurred on 20th April.

The CSB takes a very holistic approach to its investigations, looking at technical factors but very importantly, the organisational, cultural and human factors which may have contributed to such an incident.

An additional benefit of a CSB investigation is the fact that CSB is capable of producing excellent material to share all of the learnings with the wider community. The video  'anatomy of a disaster' about Texas City is a must see for chemical industry professionals.

In a letter to Senator Henry Waxman, the CSB Chairman, John Bresland, has agreed that the investigation will look for similarities with the BP Texas City explosion but stressed the importance that the investigation be carried out without preconceptions and that all of the underlying causes and factors are thoroughly examined.

This point is essential. Politicians and some media outlets have been very quick to condemn BP as 'guilty'. Some of the accusations may prove to be valid but this can only be fairly determined with a thorough and proper investigation of all of the issues and all of the parties involved.

5 Years On Since Texas City - CSB Statement

photo : CSB

March 23rd marked exactly 5 years since the Texas City disaster, a tragedy that resulted in 15 deaths, 170 injuries and a huge financial cost for the owner, BP.

A lot has happened in that time; there has been much wider recognition of the need for effective Process Safety Management (PSM) and many companies have implemented or are in the process of implementing very strong PSM policies and procedures.

However, there are still many companies that are not doing as much as they should in this regard. This is clearly a major concern. As a regular reader of the trade press, I see details of incidents and fatalities on a depressingly regular basis. This really should not be the case.

The Chairman of the US Chemical Safety Board (CSB), John Bresland has issued a statement regarding the incident and its impact on the industry. His final paragraph is a very succinct reminder for all of us in the industry

"When will we know whether the tragedy of 2005 has resulted in greater safety at BP and other companies’ refineries? Only when we can look back over the passing of a significant number of years without major accidents, deaths, or injuries. In the meantime, only the highest commitment to running down the even smallest of problems and upsets will assure the prevention of so-called low probability, high-consequence events like the tragedy that took so many lives in Texas City five years ago today."

Weekly News Round Up

A little earlier than usual - this week's round-up of news and updates on previous stories

• IPIC has responded to reports that it was in talks with Bayer MaterialScience and four other global petrochemical groups.
  An IPIC spokesman commented: "At present there are no firm plans to do anything with Bayer MaterialScience, or any other chemical company. A number of initiatives are under consideration internally, but nothing has been decided."
  

• Three officials at a subsidiary of the UK mining company Vedanta Resources have been arrested in India following the collapse of a chimney in one of its power stations which killed 41 people.
  The tragic incident occurred in September at Vedanta's Bharat Aluminium Company (Balco) power plant in Chhattisgarh, central India, during heavy storms. After a two-month investigation, local police have arrested Balco's vice-president, who was also the plant's project manager, its associate general manager and a graduate trainee engineer
  

• The chief executive of the UK Chemical Industries Association (CIA) has warned  that the UK runs the risk of losing out to its international competitors if the government does not tackle fundamental issues such as regulation, energy and credit availability. In a CIA survey of business investment attitudes, 68% of British chemical and pharmaceutical business leaders said they had felt overburdensome regulation in the UK would act as a barrier to further investment. The survey also showed that 53% of those questioned said energy security and price would act as a key barrier, while 37% cited the problem of credit availability.
  
  
• The UK Times Newspaper published the results of a poll on the views of the UK public on climate change. According to the Times, only 41% accept as an established scientific fact that global warming is taking place and is largely man-made. 32% believe that the link is not yet proved; 8% say that it is environmentalist propaganda to blame man and 15% say that the world is not warming.

• The US Chemical Safety Board (CSB) has confirmed that that spilled gasoline vaporised and caused a fire and blast in late October that destroyed more than 10 petroleum storage tanks owned by Caribbean Petroleum in Puerto Rico.
  

CSB Requests Closure of US Refinery

photo : http://www.ksl.com/

The US Chemical Safety Board (CSB) has requested the closure of the Silver Eagle Refinery located in Utah, USA. According to CSB President, John Bresland, the CSB team found widespread safety problems at the refinery during the investigation into the November 4th explosion at the plant.

According to Mr Bresland, the CSB team had developed a number of serious concerns about the integrity of the piping and equipment at the refinery. The team found a  lack of required documentation to demonstrate fitness for service of various pieces of equipment.

The explosion on 4th November was caused by a release of hydrogen due to a burst in a 10-inch pipe. CSB investigators found that the pipe "showed evidence of significant thinning which had not been detected by the refinery's mechanical integrity program". The explosion, in the diesel hydrotreater unit, caused damage to homes in the surrounding area and was felt several miles away from the facility

The refinery will restart after repairs and safety inspections are completed.

This is yet more evidence that regulators are becoming tougher in dealing with process safety issues. This blog fully supports this tougher stance. Incidents such as this are fully preventable if organisations are proactive in process safety management (PSM) and have a strong PSM strategy and culture throughout the organisation.

Dust Explosion and Inferno at Sugar Plant

In another stunning video, the US Chemical Safety Board describes the sequence of events that led to a catastrophic incident at Imperial Sugar in Georgia, USA in February 2008.

The dust explosion and subsequent fire killed 14 people and injured many more. The facility was virtually destroyed.

Imperial Sugar failed to understand and address the issues at their site, with spillages of sugar and airborne sugar dust becoming the norm at this facility. Dust control systems were poorly designed and in a bad state of repair. Staff were not trained to identify and deal with the issues and emergency preparedness was poor.

Eventually, a plant modification was made with catastrophic effects, leading to dust explosion, fire and multiple fatalities.

Although the exact sequence of events was specific to this incident, the common themes were all present. As manufacturers we have the following obligations:

• Understand our hazards
• Manage those hazards
• Ensure effective housekeeping
• Have well trained personnel
• Ensure full emergency preparedness
• Have effective management of change procedures
• Measure and review HSE (and process safety) performance using leading and lagging indicators

If anyone claims that it is too expensive to implement the above list, just compare that cost with the human and financial cost of an incident leading to 14 fatalities and a destroyed plant.

Failure to Understand Reactive Chemistry Hazards Leads to Fatal Accident

A fatal blast in 2007 at the T2 MCMT plant (a fuel additive) resulted from a fundamental lack of understanding of the reactive chemistry hazards - according to the investigation carried out by the US Chemicals Safety Board (CSB). In yet another excellent video, the CSB outlines the events that led up to the incident and explains the causes. The CSB investigation found that the company, T2, did not understand the reactive chemistry hazards, having scaled up their process from a bench scale. This meant that appropriate safeguards such as adequate relief systems, safety instrumented systems, back up cooling supplies were either inadequate or not in place and consequently staff training and operating procedures did not address this risk.

Two operators were killed instantly and two were killed by flying debris. 32 people in the vicinity were also injured. The plant was destroyed.

There is a wealth of published material on this subject, such as the guide produced by UK Health and Safety Executive. However figures show that in the US alone, 167 serious incidents of this type occurred between 1980 and 2001

Operating companies must understand and manage their risks. This type of tragic incident should not be happening in our industry.

Dust Explosions

Build up of combustible dust in chemical plants, food plants and other industrial premises can provide the fuel for devastating dust explosions that can lead to death and injury, can destroy plants and damage local communities. The US Chemical Safety Board (CSB) has produced yet another excellent awareness video highlighting the risks associated with dusts. I would highly recommend this video to all of those for whom dust explosion could be considered a risk.